An Exposition of the Teaching of the Orthodox Church Concerning the Mother of God (Part 1)

The Mother of God, the Ever-Virgin Mary, is the highest being among all created rational beings, incomparably higher than the highest angels, the cherubim and seraphim, incomparably higher than all the holy men. She is the Lady and Queen of all creation, earthly and heavenly. She is the Ever-Virgin, that is, before giving birth to the God-man—a Virgin, in giving birth to Him—a Virgin, after giving birth to Him—a Virgin. The name Mary was given to her by God’s command, and means Lady.

To understand the dignity of the Mother of God, to understand it in the greatness in which it is confessed by the Orthodox Church, one is guided by precise and detailed understanding of the incomprehensible work of almighty God: the incarnation of God the Word.

The Eternal Word—the Son of God—by the power of His creative might formed for Himself a body in the womb of the Virgin: the God-man was conceived and born the God-man. The Son in His Divine nature became a son also in His human nature. Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin, one Person in two inseparable and unmixed natures—Divine and human. The Divine nature, notwithstanding its infinity, did not annihilate the human nature, and the human nature, notwithstanding its unmixed existence, did not in any way limit the infinity of the Divine nature. This wondrous union, received by faith and the spiritual understanding born of faith, incomprehensible to carnal and soulish reason, was wrought by the almightiness of Godhead.

The incarnate Lord possessed all the properties of man: spirit, soul, and body. By the name spirit is designated the rational part of man: his mind, his thought, his verbal and heartfelt feelings, which are foreign to the nature of beasts and cattle, common to human and angelic nature. The soul properly expresses itself in vital force; the soul possesses will or desire and energy or natural anger that does not pass into irritability. We see these properties also in animals. The spirit of Christ exercised itself in prayer and in setting forth the word of God in human words; the soul of Christ expressed joy, sorrow, anger, and longing; the body of Christ was conceived, born, nourished, grew, was wearied, felt hunger and thirst, rested in sleep, suffered, was crucified, and was buried and rose. Because of the indivisibility of natures, whenever the human nature manifested itself as acting exclusively, the Divine nature, acting in accord with itself, was united to it indivisibly and inseparably, though unmixed. Thus although a man was conceived in the Virgin’s womb, yet he in the very conception was also God; although a man was born of the Virgin, yet God was also born together; he grew, tasted food, was wearied by travel, was bound in the garden of Gethsemane, was struck upon the cheeks, was struck with a rod on the head, was crowned with a crown of thorns, was crucified—man, yet together also God. Thus the Apostles were eyewitnesses, disciples, and messengers of God (Lk. 1:2); Judas Iscariot betrayed God; the Jewish high priests and Pilate are deicides; the Ever-Virgin is the Mother of God. By the indivisibility of natures in one Person, what occurred with respect to one nature necessarily pertained to the other.

In the conception of the God-man from humanity, only one half was taken—the Virgin; the seed of man, which ordinarily fertilizes the womb of woman, was rejected. The reason for this is clear. The human race immediately after the creation of the first humans received the capacity to multiply (Gen. 1:28). This capacity was defiled by sin along with other capacities in its very root—in the forefathers; consequently, in producing people it transmits to them the sinful poison in the very act of generation, as the prophet David, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, confessed on behalf of all humanity: “I was conceived in iniquity” (Ps. 50:7). The method of conception that transmitted sinfulness along with life could not be used in the conception of the God-man, who was destined to be a redemptive sacrifice for humanity. The sacrifice for the sinfulness of humanity had to be free from sin, wholly immaculate. This is not enough: it had to be of immeasurable worth, that it might redeem humanity, guilty before the infinite God, irredeemable, therefore, by any limited worth, however great that worth might be. The human nature made the God-man capable of being a Sacrifice, while the Divine nature gave this Sacrifice immeasurable worth.

God the Word, in order to assume humanity, replaced the operation of man’s seed with the creative power of God. “The Son of God”, says the holy John of Damascus, “formed for Himself the beginning of our nature, flesh, animated by a rational and intellectual soul, from the most pure and virgin blood, yet not from seed, but creatively.” A Virgin was also prepared for a worthy conception.

The Virgin, concerning whose conception the angel announced to parents who were praying and weeping over their childlessness, who became the fruit of tearful prayers and fasting, who was the daughter of the righteous, who from her birth was by them dedicated to God and by the disposition of her spirit dedicated herself wholly to the service of God—the Virgin was already in herself a vessel most pure. The purity of the Virgin was all the more untouched by sensual feelings, as her mind, constantly directed and cleaving to God, did not even descend to thoughts of marriage. She testified this to the Archangel who announced to her the conception and birth of the Son (Lk. 1:34). A pure vessel, prepared by God through the mediation of holy men and holy angels, a pure vessel prepared by her own disposition, was still further purified by the Holy Spirit for receiving the all-holy, immaterial seed—the Word. When the Virgin asked the Archangel about the manner of conception and birth for one without a husband, he explained to Her in this way: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Lk. 1:35). The Word is named as Power. The Word of God is at once both the Power of God and the Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24): “all things through Him” – the Word – “came into being, and without Him nothing that has come into being came into being” (Jn. 1:3). The Holy Spirit descended upon the pure Virgin and further purified her. Pure by her own condition of body and spirit, she became the Most Pure through the creative all-powerful action wrought in her by the life-giving, purifying, renewing, transforming, and transfiguring Spirit of God, who sanctifies His vessels. The pure Virgin became the Most Pure, free from any defilement whether thought or felt, became graced-pure, spirit-bearing, divine Virgin. Into such a renewed and God-adorned vessel, having acquired from the action of the Holy Spirit in her the capacity and dignity to receive in herself God the Word, the Word-God descended, became in the Virgin’s womb both seed and fruit, and became incarnate. “The Holy Spirit”, says John of Damascus, “descended upon her, purified her, and granted her the capacity both to receive the Godhead of the Word and to give birth. Then He overshadowed her, as it were with divine seed, the Son of God.”

The Most Pure Virgin offered her most pure blood as a gift on behalf of the entire human race to the Seed-Word for the conception of the God-man.

The Virgin, having conceived and given birth to God and man in one person, became the Mother of God in the precise sense, because the One she bore was God, though he was also man. “How is she not the Theotokos”, exclaims the holy John of Damascus, “who gave birth to God incarnate from her?” The Virgin, having become the Mother of God, thereby naturally became the Lady, Queen, and Mistress of all rational creation, earthly and heavenly; yet at the same time she remains a creature and the servant of her Son and God. Having given birth to the Sacrifice for all humanity, she gave birth to this Sacrifice also for herself, as belonging to humanity. Her Son is God, Creator, Lord, Redeemer, and Saviour.

When God pronounced judgment in Paradise over the fallen first two humans, He pronounced also a promise that the Seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). The seed of man was passed over in the promise; the crushing of sin’s dominion over humanity is attributed exclusively to the Seed of the woman. As the time approached in which the Redeemer was to appear on earth, the prophecy concerning the manner of His appearing was pronounced more clearly. “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Is. 7:14), the prophet Isaiah foretold of the event of the incarnation seven centuries before the event. Indeed: a wondrous sign, a sign given by God, which could not even occur to man! A supernatural sign, which the Lord and Creator of human nature Himself invented and gave, transforming the laws of nature, making the Virgin a Mother and Himself, the Lord and Creator of all visible and invisible creatures, the Fruit of her womb! Deceived by pride, Adam dreamed in Paradise of becoming God. He attempted thievishly and violently to steal Godhead from Godhead, to appropriate the infinite to the limited through the contrivance and effort of weak creatures. The creature perished in the attempt to execute this audacious, foolish scheme. He did not grasp the infinite goodness of God, able to grant the creature not only the advantages of angelic and human natures, but even His own Godhead, insofar as the creature is capable of receiving such a gift. The schemes and attempts of the forefathers were futile and deadly: it is God Himself who grants His Godhead to humanity, which desired Godhead, by becoming incarnate of the Virgin, taking the form of a servant and creature, partaking of the nature of rational beings, that He might make them capable of partaking of the Divine nature. Receive what is being given without envy; receive what is being given by unspeakable goodness; receive what cannot be stolen either through thievish cunning or through rapacious violence! Because of that very pride by which you desired by your own effort and unscrupulous deceit to steal and arrogate to yourselves the untouchable and inaccessible Godhead, do not reject the great honor, do not refuse, for the dignity of beasts and demons, the dignity of gods, which God Himself, having humbled Himself to the flesh and born of the Virgin, has brought to earth, to the sorrowful valley of your exile.

The God-man had a human nature that was entirely immaculate, yet limited. It was limited: limited not only by that limitation with which man was created, but also by that which appeared in far greater degree in human nature after the fall. The God-man was without sin, entirely exempt from sin, even in its minutest forms; His natural properties were not altered, as in us, into passions; these properties were in Him in the natural order, in constant subjection to the spirit, under the governance of the spirit, and the spirit was under the constant governance of the Godhead united with humanity. The God-man had the property to be sorrowful and to grieve; but sorrow never dominated Him, as happens with us, but was constantly governed by the spirit. The Lord grieved at the death of Lazarus, shed tears at his tomb (Jn. 11:33, 35, 38); the Lord wept over Jerusalem, foretelling its destruction for its rejection of the Messiah (Lk. 19:41); the Lord allowed in Himself such pre-mortal agony in the garden of Gethsemane that this state of His soul is named in the Gospel as an anguish and a mortal sorrow. It was accompanied by such a suffering strain of the body that the body poured forth and shed upon the earth sweat, drops of which were like drops of blood (Mt. 26:38–39; cf. Lk. 22:43–44). But even in this intense anguish, the heavy sorrow remained obedient to the spirit, which, expressing both the weight of the sorrow and its own power over it, said: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will” (Mt. 26:39). The God-man had the property of anger; but anger operated in Him as a holy power of the soul, as character, as energy, constantly preserving human dignity, never displaying any abandonment. The Lord expressed His displeasure at those who would not allow children to come to Him (Mk. 10:14); He was moved with anger at the hardened and blinded Pharisees who dared to slander an evident miracle of God (Mk. 3:5). An extraordinary and striking mastery of anger in the exercise of this power is seen in those terrible denunciations which the Lord pronounced against the Jews (Mt. 23; Jn. 5:7–8, 10). The human properties of Christ during His sufferings for humanity present a magnificent spiritual spectacle: the Lord, throughout all these sufferings, remains constantly true to Himself; for a moment there appeared in Him neither the ardor nor the ecstasy that ordinarily animated earthly heroes; for a moment there appeared in Him neither the verbosity nor the eloquence of these heroes; for a moment there appeared in Him no changeability whatsoever; constantly operated in Him an unshakable equal power, without weakness and without strain; this power constantly expressed both its might and its subjection to the holy authority that guided it. If one ponders the character of Jesus Christ in attentive reading of the Gospel, one will confess Jesus to be God by this character alone, as the Apostle Peter confessed Him to be God solely for His word of life (Jn. 6:68). Such a character—constantly and wholly free and open, constantly uniform, never carried away, never changing either by reproach or by praise, nor before the faces of murderers and death—such another character is not found among human characters. The God-man was wholly free from one of the properties of our fallen nature; He was wholly free—not in the bodily structure, but in the sensation of soul and body—from that property which before the fall was not felt at all, was felt immediately after the fall, then developed, and became natural to fallen nature. Adam, created without passion from the earth, Eve, taken without passion from Adam, in accordance with the passionless beginning of their being, were without passion. They were so without passion and innocent that with intimate companionship and constant interaction with each other they had no need of clothing, did not even understand their nakedness, despite the fact that they constantly saw it (Gen. 2:25). The God-man was conceived from the operation of the Holy Spirit! The Word formed for Himself flesh in the womb of the Most Pure Virgin! God made His flesh Divine even in its very conception, capable of sensations solely spiritual and Divine. Although the properties of the flesh of the God-man were human, yet all of them were deified, as belonging to one Person, who is God and man. For this same reason, the human properties of the God-man were at once both natural and supernatural in relation to human nature. The holiness of the flesh of God and Lord was infinitely higher than the holiness in which the flesh of the creature—Adam—was created. It is evident that the infection which human sinfulness transmits to all men through the degrading conception according to the likeness of beasts and cattle, conception in sin, could have no place here, because the very method of conception did not exist, that is, there was not the means by which the sinful infection is transmitted. On the contrary, as the conception was Divine, so all its consequences were Divine. The God-man as a redemptive Sacrifice took upon Himself all human infirmities—the consequences of the fall—except sin, that in redeeming humanity He might deliver it from the burden of these infirmities, show it in a renewed state, show it without those infirmities which the fall brought to our nature. The God-man took up and bore our infirmities voluntarily, and was not at all subject to them by natural necessity; being a perfect man, He was also a perfect God, the Creator of human nature, the unlimited Lord of this nature. For this reason He manifested His humanity as it pleased Him. Sometimes He manifested His humanity in the weakness of fallen nature: he grew weary, was thirsty, accepted rest in sleep, was seized and bound in the garden of Gethsemane, suffered beating and mockery, was crucified and buried. Sometimes He manifested His humanity in the rights of nature as it was created: He walked on water; He rode into Jerusalem on an unbroken colt that no man had ever ridden; this authority was originally the possession of Adam. Sometimes the Lord manifested His human nature in that state of glory and majesty which He granted to human nature by uniting in Himself, in one Person, the Godhead and humanity, which it had not at all at creation, in the state of innocence and immortality: this state of majesty and glory He revealed by wondrous signs, and particularly revealed to the chosen disciples at His transfiguration, revealed to the degree they were capable of seeing, not to the degree in which it truly is. The Godhead of the God-man is united unmixed, yet wholly united with His humanity: the Godhead of the God-man is united with His human spirit, with His soul, with His body. When the soul of Christ separated from the body of Christ through death, the Godhead of Christ remained inseparable both from His soul and from His body. The holy Church proclaims: “In the tomb in the flesh, in Hades with Your soul as God, in Paradise with the thief, and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit, O Christ, filling all things immaterial”.

The body of the God-man had uncommon grace and beauty, as His forefather and the holy prophet David prophetically sang of Him: “He is fairer than the sons of men” (Ps. 44:3). But the bodily beauty of the God-man in no way produced on the female sex those impressions which beauty of men ordinarily produces on it. May such a vile and blasphemous thought be rejected and cursed, though it has been accepted and spoken by heretics. On the contrary, the body of Christ healed all passions, both mental and bodily. What property it was pervaded with, that property it also imparted. It abundantly dispensed Divine grace to all who gazed upon it, all who touched it, both men and women. “Power went out from Him”, testifies the Gospel, “and healed all” (Lk. 6:19). “And as many as touched Him were made well” (Mk. 6:56). This is the Divine body of which the Lord Himself testified: “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life” (Jn. 6:54). “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (Jn. 6:56). Let every Orthodox and devout Christian contemplate the inconceivable greatness of the Mother of God, who carried in her womb such a body, then carried it in her arms, and for the longest time was in the closest relationship to this body. Because of the Divinity of the body of Christ, it is unerring to recognize and call the greatness of the Mother of God Divine.

The body of Christ at His burial was laid in a narrow, artificial cave hewn in stone, that is, in a hill consisting of solid rock. The cave was so narrow that it is called a tomb in the Gospel. The entrance to it is so low that one must crawl into the cave through it in the most bent position. After the body of Christ was placed in the tomb, a stone of considerable size was rolled to the entrance of the tomb (Mt. 27:60). The Jewish high priests, fearing the resurrection of Christ which He had foretold and thinking that the body of Christ was subject to the same laws to which human bodies are ordinarily subject, sealed the stone that blocked the entrance to the cave at its outer surface; beyond that, they stationed a guard at the entrance. Thus, according to human reasoning, all obstacles were most carefully combined and arranged to prevent the resurrection; all measures were taken that in case of a resurrection, immediately upon resurrection the risen body should be destroyed by violent death. But the Divine body rose again, leaving both the natural obstacles and the human precautions untouched. It penetrated through the thick, solid, and hard substance of the cave: the stone remained sealed, the seal was unbroken; the cave gave no crack for the passage of the risen body; the guards stationed for watch and violence did not merit to feel the resurrection nor see the risen one. Already after Christ’s resurrection an angel descended, broke the seal, rolled away the stone, and announced the accomplished resurrection; the guards at the mere sight of the angel fell dead to the ground (Mt. 28:2, 4). The Divine body after the resurrection penetrated through the closed door to the gathered Apostles (Jn. 20:19). It was not recognized by the two disciples walking to Emmaus; when they recognized it at the breaking of bread, it suddenly became invisible (Lk. 24:31). This body before the eyes of all the Apostles lifted itself from the earth, began to rise and to pierce the air as if winged, was hidden from the sight of the Apostles at an inaccessible height, entered into heaven (Acts 1:9). In heaven the protomartyr Stephen saw it, having been granted such a vision by the action of the Holy Spirit, and cried out: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). With such supernatural advantages the God-man has manifested, constantly manifests, and manifests His human body after the resurrection. These advantages are an incorruptible, spiritual crown with which the body of the God-man is rightfully crowned by Him, as having conquered and trampled down death by death.

One must not think that the body of Christ acquired such properties only after the resurrection. No! As the body of the all-perfect God it always had them, but after the resurrection it merely constantly manifested them. The following events prove this. Once in the Temple at Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus Christ made a reference to His pre-eternity according to His Godhead; the Jews took up stones to stone the God-man who had declared Himself so openly to them. But the Lord suddenly became invisible in their midst and departed from the Temple, having passed through a multitude of His enemies. Another time the enraged inhabitants of the city of Nazareth seized the Lord who was teaching in their synagogue and led Him to the summit of the mountain upon which the city was built, in order to cast Him down and kill Him; but the Lord became invisible and, having come forth from their midst, departed (Lk. 4:29-30). The Lord acted thus also at His birth: He came forth from the womb of the Virgin, not breaking the seals of her virginity, not opening the doors of this wondrous temple of His, as the prophet who, in the ecstasy of his vision, had foretold: “This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, and it shall be shut; for the Lord God of Israel has entered by it, and it shall be shut” (Ezek. 44:2). The holy Church sings to the Lord in her hymns: “Our Creator appeared incarnate of the Virgin without seed, rising from the tomb without breaking the seal, and entered the Apostles through closed doors in the flesh.” “Keeping the seals of chastity intact, O Christ, You did rise from the tomb, not damaging the virginity of the Mother in Your birth.” “All your mysteries surpass understanding, all are wonderful, O Mother of God; you art kept in sealed purity and virginal chastity, having truly been known as Mother, O you who did bear the true God.” “Before childbearing you wast a Virgin, and in childbearing a Virgin, and after childbearing you remainest a Virgin.” “Anathema to those who dare to say that the most pure Virgin Mary was not a virgin before childbearing, in childbearing, and after childbearing.”

The Divine body of the God-man was conceived divinely and born divinely. The Virgin accomplished the birth while being filled with spiritual, most holy joy. Suffering did not accompany this birth, as suffering did not accompany the taking of Eve from Adam. They could not have a place here, being one of the penalties for original sin, and this sin had no place here, because the conception occurred not only without the participation of male seed, not only without any sensation of carnal pleasure, but, in contrast to ordinary conception, with the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Virgin and the indwelling of the all-holy God-Word in the Virgin’s womb. The painlessness of the Virgin in giving birth to the God-man is very clearly seen from the simple and modest narrative which we read in the Gospel: “She bore her firstborn Son”, the Gospel tells of the Mother of God, “and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger” (Lk. 2:7). The Virgin gave birth and immediately began to serve! She wrapped the newborn, laid Him in the manger, not needing outside help in her service, because she felt no suffering, no exhaustion, which are so characteristic of women giving birth to children in sin, conceived in iniquity, bearing them already struck with eternal death and for eternal death. The Mother of God bore Life and the Giver of life (Jn. 14:6).